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Subject Area: Political Theory
Topic: The American Revolution and Constitution

27 Jan. 1787: TO BENJAMIN HICHBORN. - John Adams, The Works of John Adams, vol. 9 (Letters and State Papers 1799-1811) [1854]

Edition used:

The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States: with a Life of the Author, Notes and Illustrations, by his Grandson Charles Francis Adams (Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1856). 10 volumes. Vol. 9.

Part of: The Works of John Adams, 10 vols.

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TO BENJAMIN HICHBORN.

London, 27 January, 1787.

I have received with pleasure your obliging letter of the 24th of October, and am much affected with the disagreeable state of things in the Massachusetts. It is indeed news to me that there is any such fixed determination as you mention, in the minds of men of greatest influence. Perhaps I am not a proper confidant of those gentlemen. As to my coming home, it is not possible for me to come home with decency until next year, at the expiration of my commission, which will be in about twelve months. Then I shall come home, of course. I wish with all my heart I were now in Boston, or to embark for that town to-morrow; not that I give full credit to your sanguine partiality to me in supposing that I shall be chosen first magistrate; not that I think it an eligible situation in such times, or that my health or other qualifications would enable me to sustain the weight of it with dignity at any time. Indeed, I doubt whether my sentiments of government are agreeable to the majority of our State, and I am not enough of an accommodating disposition to give up or conceal sentiments that I think of consequence, for the sake of places. The commotions in New England alarmed me so much that I have thrown together some hasty speculations upon the subject of government, which you will soon see. If the general spirit of those papers is not approved in our country, my career in political life will be very short.

I see, by some newspapers received to-day, that you have distinguished yourself in support of the laws, in a manner that does you great honor, and will not soon be forgotten. I begin to suspect that some gentlemen who had more zeal than knowledge in the year 1770, will soon discover that I had good policy, as well as sound law, on my side, when I ventured to lay open before our people the laws against riots, routs, and unlawful assemblies. Mobs will never do to govern States or command armies. I was as sensible of it in 1770 as I am in 1787. To talk of liberty in such a state of things! Is not a Shattuck or a Shays as great a tyrant, when he would pluck up law and justice by the roots, as a Bernard or a Hutchinson, when he would overturn them partially? You see I have not forgotten old stories any more than you. I am sorry, however, that you recollect the old affair of the letters, in which I ever believed you as innocent as myself, and more so, too. I had long since forgotten it, or at least all unpleasant feelings occasioned by it. Although those letters gave offence to some men whom I always esteemed, there were other sentiments in them which contributed to apprise the continent early of what I was about, and to prepare their minds for it. Those letters are the first monument extant of the immortally glorious project of Independence.1 Instead of blushing at them altogether, I glory in them, and so will my grandchild that I hope to see next spring. You will oblige me much, Sir, by any communications you can spare the time to make me.

TO PHILIP MAZZEI.

London, 12 June, 1787.

Your favor of the 24th of May is before me. To defend the separation of the legislative, executive, judicial powers from each other, and the division of the legislative into three branches, from the attacks of county committees, riotous assemblies, and uninformed philosophers and statesmen, will be the burden of my song, and I am very glad to find that the attempt has met with your approbation. Such a distribution of power appears to me the unum necessarium of liberty, safety, and good order, and, therefore, no pains taken to preserve it will be thrown away. An application has been made to me here in behalf of a French writer, who is very capable of translating such a book, and who wishes to publish an edition in French, in London. His name is De la Tour. I have discouraged his project hitherto, because Mr. Jefferson informed me that some one had undertaken it in Paris. You inform me that several have applied to government for permission. But will they obtain it? I am just returned from an excursion to Amsterdam, where I was told by a bookseller that he was about getting it translated into Dutch. But I doubt whether any of these undertakers will proceed; for American affairs are not now so interesting in Europe as they were in the time of the war, and such a work will not sell now as it would then. I should be glad to know with certainty whether your bookseller has obtained permission, and whether he will proceed, for the regulation of my own conduct. Has he published his advertisement? I should think he had better proceed with the first volume, without waiting for the second, that he may form a better judgment, whether it is worth his while to translate the second at all.

If the separate States preserve inviolable the divisions and separations and independence of these several authorities, their liberties, their security, their good order, prosperity, grandeur, and glory will be the certain consequence, whatever imperfections may remain incurable in the confederation. But, if these precautions are not taken, we shall have a capricious and a turbulent, if not a bloody scene, in America for a hundred years to come. So it appears to me, and no endeavors of mine shall be wanting to secure the good and prevent the evil, however unpopular I may make myself by the attempt.

R. H. LEE TO JOHN ADAMS.

New York, 3 September, 1787.

Since my letter to you of December, 1785, from Chantilly, in Virginia, in answer to the letters that you were pleased to write me on the 26th of August, 6th and 7th of September, 1785, I have not been honored with any letter from you. On my arrival here, I met with and read with great pleasure your book on the American governments. The judicious collection that you have made, with your just reflections thereon, have reached America at a great crisis, and will probably have their proper influence in forming the federal government now under consideration. Your labor may, therefore, have its reward in the thanks of this and future generations. The present federal system, however well calculated it might have been for its designed ends, if the States had done their duty, under the almost total neglect of that duty has been found quite inefficient and ineffectual. The government must be both legislative and executive, with the former power paramount to the State legislatures, in certain respects essential to federal purposes. I think there is no doubt but that this legislature will be recommended to consist of the triple balance, if I may use the expression to signify a compound of the three simple forms acting independently, but forming a joint determination. The executive (which will be part of the legislative) to have more duration, and power enlarged beyond the present. This seems to be the plan expected, and generally spoken of. I say expected, because the Convention is yet sitting, and will continue so to do until the middle of this month. I was appointed to that Assembly, but being a member of Congress, where the plan of Convention must be approved, there appeared an inconsistency for members of the former to have session in the latter, and so pass judgment at New York upon their opinion at Philadelphia. I therefore declined going to Convention, and came here, where we have lately contracted for the sale of six millions of acres, on the north-western side of Ohio, in the ceded territory, for lessening the domestic debt. And now, another offer is made for two millions more. I hope we shall at least be able to extinguish the domestic debt created by the late war, which is by far the greatest part of the debt. So many of our members have lately gone from hence to the Convention, that we have had but five States in Congress for a month past, which has prevented any determination on your application to return. It seems at present to be very doubtful whether there will be any resident appointed to the Court where you are; some being for a minister, some for a chargé, and some for neither, but a consul only. How it will terminate can scarcely be conjectured yet.

ARTHUR LEE TO JOHN ADAMS.

New York, 3 October, 1787.

I inclose you the long expected production of the Convention. I am inclined to think you will deem it somewhat too aristocratic. An oligarchy, however, I think, will spring from it in the persons of the President and the Vice-President, who, if they understand one another, will easily govern the two Houses to their will. The omission of a Declaration of Rights, the appointment of a Vice-President, whose sole business seems to be to intrigue, securing trial by jury in criminal cases only, making the federal court original instead of appellant, and that in the case of a citizen of any State and one of another, and of a foreigner with the citizen of any State, the omission of a council, and vesting legislative, executive and judicial powers in the Senate, the making this Senate counsellors to the President, and judges on his impeachment, which may happen to be for the very thing they have advised, are errors, if errors, gross as a mountain. I say, if errors, for I am very much inclined to believe they were designed.

Congress having three States represented by those who were members of Convention, and three of the most influential, each in three other States, resolved to send it on without any recommendation, because its opponents insisted upon having their reasons on the journals, if they offered to recommend it. The States present were New Hampshire, two Convention men, Massachusetts, two Convention, one not, Connecticut, one Convention, one not, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Virginia, one Convention, three not, North Carolina, one Convention, one not, South Carolina, one Convention, one not, Georgia, two Convention. Pennsylvania has ordered the State Convention to meet on the 3d of November to determine on its adoption. All the other assemblies will direct Conventions when they meet. From the present appearance of things, it seems probable it will become our Constitution just as it is. No opposition is declared to it but in Virginia, where it will be opposed, I imagine, by the Governor, Richard Henry Lee, Mr. Mason, and Mr. Henry. In this State, the Governor and all his friends are in opposition. I wish it may be amended, and cannot see why it should not.

My brother, R. H. Lee, is here, and desires to be affectionately remembered to you. Please to remember me to Mrs. Adams, Mr. and Mrs. Smith, and to my nephews, to whom I have not time to write. Adieu.

A. Lee.

[1 ]The allusion is to the intercepted letters. See vol. ii. p. 411, note.